The EU takes significant measures to nurture European startups and scaleups in their growth, especially via the European Innovation Council. One its most impactful instruments, the EIC Accelerator, provides substantial financial support for SMEs, startups, spin-outs and in some cases small mid-caps. Despite the high-quality applications, the success rate is still low with only a minor fraction of applicants receiving funding. In reality, many more startups need support in creating a high-impact innovative product, service or business model. Even applicants who obtain a Seal of Excellence from the EIC Accelerator struggle to secure appropriate alternative funding from other sources. High quality support should be available to many more companies than those selected by the EIC Accelerator. SynergistEIC project is conceptualized by four partners with experience in advising technology startups and running FSTP measures. The project’s long term strategic objective is to help European digital and deep tech startups scale in the EU and globally, contributing towards EU’s autonomy in strategic sectors. This will be achieved by providing tailored, specific and hands-on support to European impact-driven startups, notably in the sector of climate-tech, green-tech, circular economy and agri-food to increase their competitiveness and readiness to succeed in EIC Accelerator. SynergistEIC project will identify and select 30 digital and deep tech startups (10 startups that are Seal of Excellence holders or those who passed Step 1 of EIC Accelerator application, and 20 non-EIC applicants), especially from Widening countries, through two waves of open calls. The team will award them with sub-grants, tailored advisory and acceleration services. It will also raise their awareness of EU funding and procurement opportunities, and will connect them with investors, and national and European innovation ecosystem actors, to boost their scalability and business performance.

The European Union leads globally in sustainable and climate technologies, yet maintaining this leadership necessitates ensuring broad accessibility across all Member States for GreenTech, AgriTech, and ClimaTech innovators. Despite significant potential, disparities persist in gender inclusivity and resource distribution, risking the exclusion of certain regions and stakeholders without intervention. The WE-RISE project addresses these challenges by empowering underrepresented female entrepreneurs in GreenTech, AgriTech, and ClimateTech. Through a strategic blend of funding and tailored support, the consortium aims to amplify the market presence of high-potential women-led startups, particularly from emerging European economies. The project's pillars include amplifying market presence through targeted funding and investor matchmaking, integrating startups into the ecosystem through cross-border acceleration activities, and providing a holistic growth program. By prioritising inclusivity, diversity, and systemic change, WE-RISE seeks to enhance the impact and visibility of Green-Women-led startups, contributing to the broader advancement of the European innovation ecosystem towards sustainability.

InnoInnovation Procurement (IP) is a recognised strategy for driving technological development in the public sector and spurring economic growth. It modernises public services and accelerates the market entry of innovations. However, Europe has not fully tapped into its potential due to barriers. Small innovative companies should be more interested in IPs but face challenges engaging with public procurers (PPs). This is due to a) lack of awareness about public contracts and b) distrust in the procurement process. Startups find it difficult to meet the requirements and adapt to lengthy procurement procedures, leading many to avoid them. The barriers faced by public procurers when working with startups: • Qualitative selection procedures often favour large cooperations in PP, and there is little understanding of startup accreditation mechanisms. • Evaluating startups requires precise adjustments to criteria related to technical solvency, economic performance, and autonomy. • Establishing testing environments like regulatory sandboxes and granting temporary testing licenses for startups. • Understanding acceptable payment options and liquidity needs specific to startups in procurement processes. The ECLIPSE project will design and test a new cutting-edge interaction model to connect PP and innovative suppliers with investor ecosystems. Special attention will be dedicated to the role of venture capitalists and how they can effectively contribute to the IP process and foster the market exploitation of its results. ECLIPSE will build a system of tailored advisory services and tools to bridge the gap between PPs’ needs and innovative suppliers' capabilities. These services will possess the expertise and competencies necessary to overcome barriers that impede the integration of innovation in public sector. By leveraging their specialised knowledge, the advisory services will enhance coordination among Member States and Associated Countries in procuring innovative solutions.

Nowadays the media sector is moving towards an increasingly digital, mobile, and social media environment with more intense competition for attention; leading to disruptions in the creation, distribution and consumption of media. The media and creative industry in Europe is facing major challenges. Development of deep tech solutions targeting the market have the potential to help EU's media and creative industry to become an even stronger sector. MediaMotorEurope (MME) will boost solutions that can address challenges such as misinformation, accessibility, user interfaces and use of data. Its goal is to nurture high-potential European deep tech innovators, solving today´s most prominent media industry challenges and support them in building the media solutions of tomorrow. To succeed in this challenge, MediaMotorEurope brings together 4 distinct ecosystems in 4 different countries across Europe: Two dedicated media hubs and two strong innovation hubs. Together with European networks of investors and startups, this will ensure that DeepTech StartUps/ScaleUps have access to the resources and prospective clients they need to succeed in accessing the market. In order to support high-potential startups and scaleups in the ecosystem, MME has constructed a dedicated support and mentoring programme. Engagement activities and ambitious selection criteria based on a SWOT analysis will provide the most promising startups with 6 month of intensive support and coaching from MME experts. This MME programme will be repeated 3 times, having the ambition to select and support a total of 60 startups throughout the project. The ambition is that each of the selected innovators will have 3 potential clients in their books by the end of the six-month support period. MME will host and attend a series of events to boost the visibility of the DeepTech solutions provided by the programme participants, creating even more opportunities to bring strong European innovations to the market.

The EU is planning to reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030. To meet these ambitious climate targets, innovative technologies and solutions need to be deployed at unprecedented speed and scale. With this in mind, the SEED+ project aims to nurture a new generation of mission-driven entrepreneurs who will come up with innovative solutions to the most pressing environmental challenges and who will have the skillset to scale them across Europe and internationally. This project is a collaboration between seven academic institutions and five business partners who are geographically spread across regions with varying innovation performance scores. The project partners share the mutual understanding that if more enterprises are to be generated from university ecosystems across Europe, state-of-the-art entrepreneurship education and support at these universities needs to be better aligned with the actual needs of budding entrepreneurs. To this end, project partners will develop and implement a new entrepreneurship course (Venture Creation Course) aimed at students with technical backgrounds, run local and international startup competitions and accelerate the most promising early-stage ventures. Moreover, business partners will work closely with university partners to set up university enterprise hubs, conduct feasibility studies into university venture capital funds and create transformation roadmaps for each local entrepreneurial ecosystem. All these activities will lead to enhanced entrepreneurial activity of university students and strengthened capacity of universities to support and nurture entrepreneurial talent across Europe.